Enterprises that ship goods to other enterprises or that ship goods to consumers sustain substantial expense in shipping those goods. Moreover, the marketplace makes it difficult for enterprises to fully charge for the expense associated with shipping the products. This is especially true in today's highly-competitive and challenging economic environment.
In addition to expense, the entire planet is becoming more environmentally conscious, such that those enterprises that can decrease their environment footprint are more favorably looked upon in the marketplace. By definition, the shipping of goods entails a variety of environmental waste. The challenge is how to reduce that waste so as to lessen the subsequent environmental impacts that occur when the waste is disposed of into the environment.
Typically, conventional printing of packing and mailing labels, for goods within an enterprise, is one-sided. These means that multiple individual pieces of paper, each comprising, for example, a single substrate, are needed to successfully ship. Some times, multiple machines are needed as well to both print the packing and mailing labels and to properly integrate them into the packing of goods being shipped. This situation adds to the expense associated with shipping by requiring more materials, more machinery for the shipping process, and in some cases more support personnel to maintain and support the shipping process.
Furthermore, conventional shipping waste generally requires separate pieces of paper comprising, for example, separate substrates, for both the mailing and packing labels; both of which are eventually disposed of into the environment. However, the mailing and packing labels are also associated with liners each of which comprises, for example, a single substrate, from which they are peeled off and eventually applied to a product. So, there may be as many as three or in some cases even four pieces of paper that have to be eventually disposed of into the environment.